


fit like a glove

by truethingsproved



Series: body lies still [2]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo, Tithe Series - Holly Black
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, F/M, Fae & Fairies, cosette/eponine friendship, one sided Eponine/Marius
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-15 23:49:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/855389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truethingsproved/pseuds/truethingsproved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s almost midnight,” Cosette whisper-shouts, and Eponine shrugs, beckoning for Cosette to follow her. She doesn’t bother to look back and see if Cosette does. Cosette always does.</p><p>She’s utterly enchanted by Eponine, by her long black hair and her blue lips and her black eyes, her long coat and frayed gloves. To be entirely honest, it startles Eponine, and it bothers her that anything should startle the harbinger of death, but this girl with all her light and warmth, she does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fit like a glove

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ryssabeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryssabeth/gifts).



Cosette’s movements are quiet by habit rather than by any desire to keep things from her father. He knows that she sometimes does this, just sits on the fire escape talking to the girl who comes by to visit sometimes, and he doesn’t approve in the slightest, but he can’t control  _everything_  she does. Eponine appreciates this and flashes Cosette a toothy grin as the girl waves at her from where she’s leaning over the fire escape.

“It’s almost midnight,” Cosette whisper-shouts, and Eponine shrugs, beckoning for Cosette to follow her. She doesn’t bother to look back and see if Cosette does. Cosette always does.

She’s utterly enchanted by Eponine, by her long black hair and her blue lips and her black eyes, her long coat and frayed gloves. To be entirely honest, it startles Eponine, and it bothers her that anything should startle the harbinger of death, but this girl with all her light and warmth, she does.

Especially when, as she does tonight, she catches up with Eponine and darts forward just enough to kiss her cheek swiftly and fondly. The touch almost stings, too warm against Eponine’s cold skin, and Cosette tuts in a fashion that seems almost maternal before taking her own scarf from around her neck and wrapping it around her companion’s.

“You’re always so cold,” she says, and it’s half-scolding, half-worried. 

“It’s just how I am,” Eponine murmurs, caught by surprise yet again, this time by her own desire to soothe the girl.

Cosette is a changeling, a faery child given to Ironsiders to raise as one of their own. She hasn’t shown any signs of iron sickness yet, though she speaks often of how she longs for the countryside and the peace and solitude it offers. Even so, she’s a social creature, light and airy and joyous, the very embodiment of hope that Enjolras’ damned revolution needs (and it is damned, she doesn’t think for a second that it isn’t, but she goes anyway—she has no love for any regent and has long since rid herself of any fealty to any court).

She wonders sometimes if that’s why Grantaire hangs around her, that she might be useful to his precious revolutionary, but she knows it’s simply because she  _is_  hope, and Grantaire could use some hope in his world.

The problem—the  _problem_ with all of Cosette’s light and cheer, is that she doesn’t know. She thinks herself human in a tragically and somehow beautifully mundane world.

“What are you showing me today?” Cosette asks, slipping her hand into Eponine’s with all the comfortable familiarity of a sister, and Eponine forces herself not to flinch back from the contact. It feels good and that worries her more than it startles her, that the presence of a pixie feels so comfortable to her.

Eponine doesn’t answer at first, simply squeezes Cosette’s hand. “Is there somewhere we can eat? Somewhere without too much steel. The smell—”

“You have the most sensitive nose of anyone I’ve met,” Cosette teases fondly, but she squeezes Eponine’s hand in return. “That little cafe you showed me, the one with the man with those absolutely  _wild_  eyebrows—we could go there, if you’d like? The food was… unreal.”

Sometimes her choice of words makes Eponine smile at the astounding simplicity of it all.  _The universe_ , she wants to tell her friend, who has begun chattering along beside her about something or another to do with one of the books of faery tales that Eponine loaned her,  _is vast and infinite and magic is real, my lovely little girl, and you are one of the magical things._ _  
_

Conversely, _monsters are real, and I am the thing that goes bump in the night, from which you run in terror._

“Your father still isn’t happy that you spend time with me, is he?” Eponine interrupts, and Cosette’s bright smile fades almost instantly and the corners of her mouth turn down in a pretty pout. Eponine wonders what that much life tastes like and envies it.

“It’s not that he doesn’t like you—” she begins, and Eponine lets out a rasping bark of laughter, squaring her shoulders.

“What did he say?” she asks, and the look of discomfort on Cosette’s face is so amusing that Eponine has to laugh again, softer this time, so as to not scare away her little bird.

She bites her lip, then looks up through long and dark eyelashes and confesses, “He said you were a banshee and that I shouldn’t listen to anything you say. I think he’s just worried I’ll end up a goth and come home with piercings and tattoos. He gets upset over black nail polish, for god’s sake. I love him but he’s—”

“—suffocating you.”

“Just a bit. Oh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said all that. He really is wonderful.”

Eponine shrugs and offers Cosette a wry grin, but it falters. Either Cosette’s father is unintentionally apt in his insults, or he knows.

She’s wondered before if he has the Sight, from the way he stares at her just a little too long, lets out a hiss of breath when she takes off her gloves (and when she did that the first time Cosette fretted quietly over her scarred hands and kissed them both, and her father nearly vaulted over a sofa to try and stop her). It almost makes sense now, the idea that he might.

She doesn’t waste any more time then, tugs Cosette’s hand until she follows her into the church they’re passing.

How do you say this?

_You’re not human._

Cosette’s eyes are wide and fond as she asks, “What is it, Eponine?” When Cosette had asked for her name Eponine had responded without thinking, hadn’t even tried to find a name that would be better for her to give. One of the countless names she’s been assigned by Ironsiders too insignificant to learn her true name, or even her speaking name.

Eponine is about to answer when the world stutters to a halt and a familiar shape rises from a nearby pew.

Marius and Cosette simply stop and stare at one another while Eponine watches them with something akin to horror. Marius smiles, falters, then walks out of the church, turning his collar up against the cold as he steps outside and sparing a soft and gentle smile for Cosette (a soft and gentle smile that Eponine wants to possess).

“What’s going on, Eponine?” Cosette asks, still dazed, still staring in wonderment after the beautiful boy and his beautiful smile, and Eponine can’t stop herself.

“You’re not human,” she tells the girl.

The silence is vibrant and taut with confusion around them. 

**Author's Note:**

> ahhhhhh wow I love writing this
> 
> word has it that Lindsay is drawing some Faejolras and Courfaerac c: I'm on Tumblr at ccosettefauchelevent, so if you want to drop by and say hello, please do!!
> 
> anyway, thank you for reading!!
> 
> (for Elizabeth)


End file.
